Source unknown 1995

Interview with the musician after his retirement

Hubert von Goisern & die Alpinkatzen finish, Hubert Achleitner goes into film. The news in the middle of 1994 moves many fans into mourning. In the meantime the live CD Wia die Zeit Vergeht is released. And Hubert plans his own film. We met him in Munich.

Hubert, most people are interested in when they will hear from you and the Alpinkatzen again.

1997. It could be that I do something on the stage in some form or other. But I would like to concentrate on a film project in which I would like to deal, as screenplay writer and actor, with something especially important to me, but I still do not want to say. I think that this project will take up the whole of next year. I do not know how much capacity I can have free in between. It could be that something will then arise from this film music with which one could go on stage, but that must first develop.

I want to have finished writing the screenplay by autumn 95, and also pre-produce the film music as soon as possible too. It should then be filmed from the coming winter to early summer, edited in summer and the film released in autumn. I imagine it really naïvely more or less like this because I have never done anything like it before. In autumn 1996 I will then probably be able to begin to put together the stage show for 1997, with which I then want to be touring live as a musician again. At the moment though, I want to have my peace. I must turn to input again. For years I was only out, polarised to output and so I feel quite empty and exhausted. Indeed, pleasantly exhausted and pleasantly empty, but I must now read books again, talk to people again, go to the cinema again and play with my children.

Your current CD has the title Wia die Zeit vergeht. Is the title also a result of the reflection: from poor musician, to star, from father to entertainer, constantly on the road? Has time gone too quickly for you?

No, nothing has gone and nothing has passed me by. The CD title is simply just a reference to how some things have changed. I want be aware with this "flow" that neither my children or I are where we stood four years ago. My son is now 7, my daughter one and a half. Being there for the "many" at this time excluded being at home for my "few". Despite all the great success and the countless fans, I also became more lonely. I think that had to be. But now I must also feel this loneliness in all consequences.

Did the chance to change to film come at exactly the right moment? Film work is not as restless or ceaseless as concert tours, you can have your family around you.

My decision to draw a line under the concert tours was made exactly two years ago I already knew myself at that time that I wanted to dedicate myself to the genre of film - that was long before anyone came to me. That the director Jo Baier offered me the role of the farmer Matthias in Hölleisengretl, that Josef Vilsmaier commissioned the film music for Schlafes Bruder from me, actually everything came to me a bit too early. But the offers were too good and the people too interesting that I could have said that I'm not doing that yet. And so I became quite a bit smarter for the conversion of my own film, especially through the experiences with Josef Vilsmaier.

When you makes such a cut into your career, still at the top, as you have, do you also still think longingly of that time when you did not have money, when you were a "musician with a taxi light" so to speak? Or are you above all happy to have come out of this stage?

I think about it, but have noticed mind you, that things have not fundamentally changed. When I had no engagements, I was also very happy. I had more time for my friends at that time, I read two books every week and meditated a great deal, occupied myself with spirituality and faith, I was in the mountains a great deal. In the first two years in Vienna, in 1983 and 84 I had a yearly income of 2000(!) Marks.

And I lived on that. It worked! I did not become unhappy because of it and also did not doubt my music more than I sometimes do now.

Ringsgwandl recently wrote a musical and read at the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize, Jürgen Buchner has been writing film music for ever, and Hubert von Goisern is also opening himself up to new horizons, thinking beyond the edge of musical success. There are only a few who do not define themselves as puppets of the business and want more. What do you want?

Ever since I can remember, it has always been about coming out of myself and my role. Earlier I did that geographically when I travelled around the world for seven years in order to get a feeling for my homeland and my culture. My way is that I lose myself if I am in one place for too long. In the last years my inner voice was only perceptible with great difficulty for me because I only ever listened to the others. Everyone just said: that must, and that must, and that ... But now I must get some peace, push everyone away, be quiet and be aware of the melodies and sounds with in me again. I want to be able to listen into myself again.

You are among those who stand for the new definition of the term "heimat" ("homeland"), but this means that you talk with each other more, are more intensively aware of your environment, above all the faults. Is it a chance for the concept of homeland, that it has been "noticed" by the intellectual, ecological corner?

I think so. It is about - apart from the tolerance - the fact that you see the things which happen around us. You have to become conscious of what happened in the last 30 to 50 years with our landscape. That is why next year I would like to make an exhibition in Goisern, where the structure is still very rural, about the forest. Is forest only the wood that stands there, or does forest have a higher significance? I asked many people rooted in Goisern for old pictures. I want to see how the Goisern valley looked before. The forest was always like a fur for me. And now our mountains look like a mangy chamois. In Goisern, as long as I just said that I want to have old pictures of our landscape, they were all enthusiastic and open. However, in discussion it then turned out that I wanted the pictures in order to show what was lost. And suddenly icy silence! The pictures were packed up again. I don't want to accuse anyone with my exhibition, I only want to show how it was and how it looks today. But suddenly people felt guilty who should not be guilty at all. I will do this photo exhibition all the same.

Does that also belong to the planned project Künstlerplattform where musicians, actors and so on want to comment on events of the day, as these other responsible personalities and institutions have begun to?

For example! That also has a part to play.

From whom does the idea come from for such an artistic initiative?

Apart from me were also Hage Hein, my manager, and the Salzburg children's book publishing company Neugebauer. But I would like to keep it all unpolitical. Nothing could be further from my mind than to say, we would now be a green movement. As such we would not reach many people again. For me it is all about information. Just the information is our chance. We have so much media and people will constantly be socked by it all - whether it is advertising or news. On the other hand, the church has nothing more to say. Nobody listens to the church anymore - that is right too, because they only spread fossilised thoughts and do not give their time and attention to the situation. Mind you, I do not believe that the artist is the new priest of our time, but they are in any case not one jot less priestly than a politician is.

What are your views on the church?

I left the Catholic church because I could not stand it any more. But I still have very many priest among my friends and also value their work. I am not of the opinion that everyone should leave, but I could no longer bring it into accord with myself any more.

Does that express itself in your work too?

I hope I will be old enough to do that sometime. Now I feel that I must express that differently. But I have begun to write a mass. The mass is one third finished, but I can imagine that I complete it. At the moment, however, that is not my life, I would have to pull myself back further, become still more spiritual. At the moment, it satisfies me when I can sit down and be quiet.

Musician and silence, that runs contrary to the laws. A musician articulates himself, a film maker articulates himself and even when you write film music, you have a feeling that you are setting a scene with sounds and thereby expressing something. Is the silence, your current wish for it, not also something you need in order to draw new strength?

Every sound comes out of silence. The sound is not noticed in the noise. Only if it is perfectly quiet can one work with subtle sounds. For each musician, the silence is very, very important as the source.

Bernd Schweinar

Bild am Sonntag 23rd April 1995

He is the founder of alpine rock, raps to accordion and cow bells, dances pogo under the Matterhorn: pop yodeller Hubert von Goisern (41) and his Alpinkatzen.

BamS interview with the unconventional "folk musician". When Hubert von Goisern lets loose on stage, the mountains shake. Now he is writing film music for Herbstmilch director Vilsmaier.

You have just given your final concert and brought out the live CD Wia die Zeit vergeht. Is that the end of the Alpinkatzen?

No. Just a long break. I simply want to live half a year without tour dates. Four years tour - that takes it out of you.

What was each day like?

Hotel room, into the bus, to the next tour stop. Soundcheck, three hour appearance, afterwards interviews and into bed. And the next day it goes on again from there. I have an eighteen month old daughter, who recognises and also likes me, thank God. I was often not at home.

When did you last have a holiday?

A year ago, six days in Greece. Or was it two years ago?

Are there new plans?

After relaxation, a cinema film. I have written the screenplay and the music for it and also stand as an actor in front of the camera. Then I am doing another fashion collection, which - just like my music - combines the traditional and contemporary.

Your trademark is mountain shoes without laces. What's that all about?

They are the only shoes I have. I cannot afford a new pair. These genuine Goiserer mountain shoes cost 1000 Mark a pair. They have survived four years of tours and should hold at least another year.

Sven Röbel

Frau Aktuell 30th August 1995

Good news for all those who are still sad about the departure of Hubert von Goisern (42) and his Alpinkatzen: the highpoints of the unconventional folk music rocker's last four concerts are now to be seen in the cinema. The film, filmed ten months ago in the Munich Zirkus Krone, is called Wia die Zeit vergeht. After that the musicians, who had achieved the peak of success after only three years, went their separate ways.

Even if it also makes Hubert sad to look at the concert excerpts from that time, he nevertheless does not regret his decision: "The Alpinkatzen are over and done with. I simply had the feeling to have achieved everything or even more than that. I had become an idol, contrary to my intention and found it first and foremost a burden. We could have carried on endlessly like that. But I am always searching for something which has not been tried and tested, from which I can gain new experiences."

The alpine rapper has now succeeded in this in among other things as a fashion designer. The little sign in his linen traditional suits bears his initials HvG. In the fashion, which he developed with a New York designer, the Upper Austrian pursued similar aims as in music. He wants to combine traditional with modern and so create something new.

At home in Bad Goisern, Hubert writes music for film and television in his little old house. From his pen also comes the music to Joseph Vilsmaier's new film version of the novel Schlafes Bruder, which comes to the cinemas in October.

As the next thing, Hubert-full-steam-down-every-street is planning his own film, with which he is taking screenplay, main role, music and direction into his own hands. He has had a lot of time for the cinema since his childhood. "I like it when everything becomes dark around me and I don't think about anything else, " he explains.

With so much go-getting, the family unfortunately gets a raw deal. Hubert's one and a half year old daughter and his seven year old son are growing up with their mother, from whom he has separated. "She is," he assures, "the best mother I can wish for, for my children."

Hubert von Goisern fans can now look forward to something. In 1997 the musician definitely wants to be back on stage. Perhaps even with his former band, the Alpinkatzen? Hubert: "I don't rule out the idea that sometime we will play again in more or less the same arrangement. But if and with which style of music, I can't say now."

Astrid Eichstedt

Profil Nr. 11 13th March 1995

Hubert von Goisern on his compatriot Jörg Haider, political responsibility, his new CD and the retirement from his active career

Hubert von Goisern, 43, celebrated tumultuous success in Austria and Germany with a synthesis of rock and folk music (Hiatamadl). After detailed concert tours, in autumn 94, he declared his retirement from active pop music and coupled this with the release of a new live double CD, which will be delivered next Monday (Wia die Zeit Vergeht, BMG Ariola). Goisern launched a rustic-elegant fashion collection and is currently working on Josef Vilsmaier's filming of Robert Schneider's novel, Schlafes Bruder. In the past week, Goisern gave his opinion via the Austrian Press Agency about the remarks from Jörg Haider who had spitefully commented on Austria's most famous rock musician's benefit event for the victims of Oberwart. Haider on the "state artist": "Hollow beliefs in democracy". Goisern on Haider: "Tasteless".

Must Austrian artists engage themselves politically?

An artist is responsible for everything like anyone. Also for the rights of fellow human beings. The climate has dramatically intensified in the whole of Europe - not just Austria, I have already commented on it in my concerts.

You have taken care of sharpening your political profile with growing popularity - criticism against Waldheim and Haider. Why?

As a folk musician I must take a good look at the unhealthy regionalism. I have antagonised many people by doing this. With the first sold out tour I have, let us say, insulted 20% of the audience. They wanted to hear my music, but not my opinion on social politics. But I have never let myself be ordered to be quiet and half the 20% certainly started to think. The other half left during the interval.

On the first album Aufgeigen statt Niederschiassen, you recorded a song against the Federal President at that time, Kurt Waldheim. How did that go down?

In my narrow homeland, I am often addressed in the local papers, there are critical readers' letters and cynical articles.

You have also picked an argument with your fellow Goiserer Jörg Haider.

A few people at home say that I should shut my mouth and make music. Jörg is, after all, a son of Goisern and is admired there because he has brought it to something.

War of the great Goiserers?

A bit.

You are almost exactly the same age as Jörg Haider. Do you know him from your childhood?

No, I only know his father, who was often with my grandfather. He is still firmly convinced that everything was right in the Third Reich.

In the country, folk music was always synchronised with conservative homeland ideology. As a child, could you listen to folk music neutrally?

Yes, I grew up musically in brass music, which was completely unpolitical for me. I played the bourgeois music as a child from a working-class family, there was no problem as long as the music worked. First when I suddenly wore my hair shoulder-length, I began to rub people up the wrong way.

Holy world in Bad Goisern?

Totally. A highly violent situation like we have in Austria now was unthinkable in our lonely village. There was no crime, we still locked neither our houses nor our cars. Everything evil only came through the TV.

Why did you decide to make folk music?

I left Bad Goisern, went to Africa for four years, to Canada for two and a half years, studied music in Toronto and went to the Philippines for six months. There I came on the folk music trip.

Do you first have to listen to world music before you can value your own folk music?

Yes. I lived in the Philippines for four months with natives in a stilt house settlement, where there was neither electricity nor radio. There folk music had a liveliness like I had never experienced before. Then the thought came to me: our music must once have been like this too.

Bad Goisern is a centre of this folk music.

Yes, but the true folk musicians operate rather underground. They outwardly convey the feeling of total intolerance. Music sounded played as though it had always been played. That was the aura.

With what approval was your pop-like processed folk music met with by the conventional folk musicians of your region?

Nobody thought it was negative. The big debate happened when Goisern became a phenomenon. Fault was never found with my music, but with my criticism of society. The people were not pleased that I had no problem with gays and pulled Haider to pieces, they immediately did not like my music any more.

You were not the first person to make folk music in a broader sense, but you were the first folk musician to reach a mass audience. Have you never worried about your own effect when full beer tent gangs bawl Hiatamadl in chorus?

I have never been in a beer tent (laughs). As soon as you have written a song, you lose influence over it. People do what they want with it, whether they understand it as a great attack on intolerance, or as a pure entertainment for beer drinking.

But you wanted exactly that, to leave people to their own devices, otherwise you would not have given interpretation instructions in concerts and on the record covers.

That's right. Naturally you can be furious about what happens but you cannot change anything.

Did you feel what a difficult potential your biggest hit possesses?

When recording the title, I was not certain whether or not it would backfire, painting incredibly, but also letting me stand there in rags.

Why?

The lyrics (Koa Hiatamadl mog i net, mog kane dicken Wadeln net) came to me very quickly, just a funny little song. But: if you don't listen to anything else from me - which has practically happened with the incredible airplay of something of Hiatamadl on the radio - you can get a very wrong impression of what I actually do.

Hiatamadl hits the mark between pop music and Musikantenstadl.

My manager wanted me to appear on Musikantenstadl. He thought it would be a subversive affair.

Did you have to justify your success to yourself?

No. But I felt that very many people came to my concerts and expected something completely different of me because they only knew Hiatamadl. At first it made me uncertain. Then I began to enjoy it because I recognised the chance to reach people I would never have been able to reach.

Beer tent music, Musikantenstadl for the youth etc. How did you cope with these reproaches?

Naturally they rankled me. The argument of the general public, whom I was trying to please, also did not help. I wanted to reach them, to make them listeners and critics. When the Salzburger Nachrichten once slated me, I descended upon the department head conference and played the accordion for them. After a slating, I invited Franz Endler to a TV discussion, he was vain enough to come, thank God.

Has the Goisern message for tolerance and against stick-in-the-muds come over in the meantime?

It is something which has gone on. There are things which are still to be said which I must first formulate musically. For that I need the break which I have announced.

How definite is this departure?

I am still doing promotion for my live CD, a few interviews and one or other TV appearance. I still have no intentions for afterwards.

So how long will the break be?

No longer than six months. My priority is abstinence from the stage. Then I want to wait until something itches me so much that I have to scratch.

Do you use your popularity in order to advance something political?

I do not want to be a politician. I am firstly concerned with human rights, then with the ecology of reason. I believe that we work too much. I do not think it should be a disgrace to have little money.

Easy for you to say.

I already said that when I had no money at all.

What could you concretely do for paradigms change?

Inform better. We are involved in establishing an artist platform which comments on the events of the day, how advertising, industry or politics are doing now.

For years you have whirled around recognition: how do you feel when suddenly your opinion on world events is of public interest?

Good. But it is also a lot of responsibility. If something happens like in Oberwart, I have to give my opinion on it, and I have to do it so that it reaches who it should. That it does not sound like me is really difficult. To express myself about music and poetry pleases me more easily.

Christian Seiler

Neue Kronen Zeitung 31st May 1997

Yodel prince Hubert von Goisern prescribed himself a two and a half year absence from the stage and dived into another life. In the "Krone" interview the international commuter reports back

Photo: Peter Tomschi

What gave you the crazy idea, two and a half years ago, to send your Alpinkatzen packing and to disappear to Tibet?

I simply wanted to venture across my boundaries and I said to myself: so, now I go off stage, have a long break and slam all doors shut behind me.

What did it bring?

Whoever cuts off their line of retreat makes a very intensive experience, a frontier experience. In this time I occupied myself with the Tibet things.

Just like that?

By chance, I got to know a Tibetan lady who lives in Austria and who asked me for support. I accepted immediately.

Although you have a partner and two children...

I have two homes. One is where I live and work alone, the other is family. My life takes place in these exciting circumstances.

Did you travel to Tibet alone?

Yes, and with I received a very great respect for these people. Although they have been oppressed for 50 years, murdered and tortured, these people have not lost the courage to face life, they have not become aggressive. We would have retaliated if one managed it. And also in Tibet there are voices who do not approve of the peaceful way. After all the general public only listens if there is a fight. Then CNN would first broadcast it live.

Do visits like yours help these people?

Solidarity always helps. And I would wish that the Austrian government finally also takes note that Tibet is an occupied country.

Has Hubert von Goisern also met the Dalai Lama?

Yes. His Holiness the Dalai Lama is one of the most wonderful people I have ever met. His charisma is contagious. I have never experienced so much joie de vivre, friendliness and warmth with any other powerful beings. A whole nation looks up to the man.

Have you gone over to Buddhism?

Certainly I am Buddhist in many regards, but I would reluctantly label myself as such. I am simply a spiritual person who has respect for every living thing.

Are you still Catholic?

I have left the Catholic church because a lot is not right for me there. Alone the fact that divorcees have no place in the church shows a picture of God that I do not like. It is also completely absurd that there can only be male priests.

You were not only in Tibet, but also in Africa.

I visited Jane Goodall in Tanzania at the Tanganyika lake and in the mountainous country of the Gombe National Park, she is the British lady who became world famous through her life with wild chimpanzees.

How can you afford your exclusive tours that go on for months?

I have worked hard for many years and made successful music. And I have saved.

Never run up debts?

I have only ever been in debt once in my life: when I wanted to buy an amplifier at the beginning of my career.

What does money mean to you?

Money is a form of energy. That you have it or not does not mean by any means that you are happy or not happy. It is important to use the energy correctly.

How will the years as someone who has opted out find expression in your music?

How is still unclear. But since this time has shaped me a great deal, it will also influence my future work.

How do you feel back in life?

In Tibet and Africa I was a spectator, a guest. Here I rather feel like a landlord. And I also do not have to worry that some lightning head comes along and puts me in prison for no reason. In Tibet such things happen, Tibet is an anti-life country. Against that, Africa is friendly.

Can you also play with children at home without any wanderlust?

I am very happy with my children. With Niko, I like to play football and tennis on video. Since he is against the EU and I am an advocate, heated discussions also always develop.

Does he like your music?

Yes, but at the moment he is on the Beethoven trip.

And Laura?

With my daughter I build huts in the woods. We like to explore nature.

Is your job relationship-friendly?

Hildegard and I did not live together when we had our first child. Then we lived together for a year, but in the time when I was on tour an estrangement happened. Yes, it is not easy to live with an artist.

If you had a wish, what would it be?

That my next project will again be such a great thing as the Alpinkatzen project.

Do you dream of success?

No. But of speaking with Sir Carl Popper about the nature of experiment. All the same, whether it works or not, you should be cleverer afterwards in any case.

Conny Bischofberger

Die Ganze Woche 26th June 1996

More than a year ago, Hubert von Goisern openly explained his resignation from the stage. Since then has been a break with refreshed new sounds à la Hiatamadl. In the time in between, he has drifted this way and that across the globe. At the presentation of a two-part ORF project (Eine steirische Fernsehgeschichte), for which Hubert wrote the music, last Friday he looked once again dropped in on the homeland. Will his fans be instructed to go on with his old records if they want to hear his music?

"No," proclaimed Hubert unexpectedly in the Woche interview, "it urges me back to the stage! But I do not yet know exactly when I will appear again." I will decide that in the next months."

And the songs, the music, there is a new direction? "At the moment, I have the feeling that it will be a rather aggressive music." Apparently he did not find real inner peace on his journeys.

"I have seen a lot, I was in Ireland, in Africa, now in Tibet for a very long time. I experienced a great deal there that annoyed me. If you get into Buddhist thinking, then there is no such thing as anger or aggravation. But I feel that: I am still too little Buddhist or perhaps not at all. I am the last person, it is said, one should by force of arms change something. But there this country has been controlled by the Chinese for 50 years, and the world does not give a damn. That really gets on my nerves, it annoys me enormously!"

What pulls him to Buddhism anyway? "Because they do not do missionary work like all the other religions. Because they are completely tolerant beside people of other faiths. That is lacking for me in our religion." And why does an accession fail till now, only to his aggressiveness? "Yes, I am not a Buddhist because I hate mosquitoes. If a mosquito bites me in the night, then I put the light on and kill it if I catch it. A Buddhist is not allowed to do something like that." So, we look forward to a new, aggressive, thoughtful Goisern.

Hannes M. Pum

Photo: s.e.t.

Brigitte 21/ 95

A long time ago we put the Tyrolean hat that lent itself so splendidly to Hubert von Goisern's alpine rock into mothballs. But we know: the "Alpine Zappa" (Bunte), the "quadrature of billy goats" (Frankfurter Rundschau) has said goodbye in his quite personal artistic break.

For 12 months, the man wants to just be one thing: Hubert Achleitner, as he was born 43 years ago in the Austrian clinical health resort Bad Goisern. With lots of time for friends, son (7) and daughter (almost 2). And for the mountains of course. "Experience the seasons," he needs "to search for peace, in order to let melodies develop in me".

Fame, Hubert noticed, has its drawbacks anyway. An autograph hunter pursued him to his grandfather's funeral. That was too much. That is why we do not begrudge him disappearing. Especially as till now Hubert's time-outs have been exceedingly fruitful: if we only take his 7 year travel tour in the 80s. Disappointed by the world (the long-haired rebel fled from the Bad Goisern brass band, a good part of the music scene too artificial to him), he landed finally in the Philippines, where he eavesdropped enraptured on the traditional noseflute and also decided to give the homeland folk music a helping hand. Result: wonderful hits like Hiatamadl and Kuahmelcher. Past, ah, past.

Then just at the right moment, before we commit ourselves completely to sentimentality, Hubert's, for the time being, last bequest reached us: the music from the Vilsmaier film Schlafes Bruder. Dramatic tones, earthy sounds in front of a clear alpine scenery. We are quiet, savouring it and at the final credits, breathe quietly "goodbye". Perhaps we ought to drive to the mountains again. To climb up. The lovely Hubert must certainly be somewhere.